The Truth About Family Meetings: Chaos Masquerading as “Good Planning”
Some estate planning attorneys have embraced a trendy idea: after completing the estate plan, invite the beneficiaries — often the children and maybe the parents too — into the office for a “Family Meeting”. The attorney then explains the plan to everyone at once, so there are “no surprises” later when the parents pass away.
Sounds good in theory, right? Fewer shocks, fewer disputes, less confusion. Some attorneys even tout this as a “value-add” for pricing their services.
But let me be clear: I strongly disagree. In my over 45 years of experience, these Family Meetings often create more problems than they solve! Problems that can haunt the client and their family for years.
The Recipe for Drama and Discord
Imagine a room full of children, each hearing for the first time how Mom and Dad have decided to distribute their estate. Maybe one child gets more because they’ve been the caregiver. Maybe another gets less because they already received lifetime gifts (like a house or a paid-for education). Maybe there are unequal distributions intended by the parents for other reasons (like one child less financially capable or successful than the others).
Instead of clarity and peace, what often results is resentment, jealousy, and outright conflict. Old sibling rivalries flare up. Long-buried resentments surface. Suddenly, you’ve created a family rift that may never heal — all before the clients have even passed away.
I ask: how is that in the client’s best interest?
The Risk of Undue Influence
Even if the meeting doesn’t lead to immediate negative emotions or outright conflict, these meetings can unintentionally open the door to undue influence. The children start thinking and fantasizing about their inheritance and looking at their parents as if they have a dollar sign on their foreheads. Once children know the details of the plan and start speculating on their parents’ estate size, they may begin lobbying — or outright pressuring — their parents to make changes. I’ve seen parents harassed, guilted, and manipulated after a Family Meeting, leading to alterations that undermine their original, true wishes.
The estate plan should reflect the parents’ decisions, free of outside pressure. A Family Meeting risks contaminating that independence.
Conflicts of Interest for the Attorney
There’s also a serious professional issue: when you open up your client’s private estate plan in front of their children, you risk blurring the lines of legal representation.
Your duty is to your client — the parents. By disclosing their confidential wishes to the children, you may create the impression that you now represent the whole family. Even if the parents sign consent to the meeting and release of confidential information, and the beneficiaries acknowledge in writing that you don’t represent them, $%*@ still hits the fan! What happens when one of those children later asks you to prepare their own estate plan? What if their interests conflict with the parents’?
You’ve walked right into an ethical minefield. Not to mention ticked off, and perhaps lost your clients (the parents) and potential clients (the beneficiaries).
The Better Way
The true role of an estate planning attorney is to protect the client — their wishes, their assets, and their legacy and family harmony. That means keeping the planning process private and client-focused. The time to reveal the plan to the beneficiaries is after the client’s death, through the proper legal process.
That’s when the attorney, serving as the family’s guide, can explain the plan, provide clarity, and administer the estate according to the client’s carefully considered wishes.
That way, the children hear the message once, in the context of grieving and moving forward, rather than years earlier when emotions and rivalries may spin out of control and blow apart the family.
Now let me admit there’s an exception when a Family Meeting may be appropriate — when a significant family business is involved and successor management and control issues may need to be addressed in advance. But I’ll also say, this type of meeting can be even more problematic.
The Bottom Line
Family Meetings may sound innovative or client-friendly, but in reality, they create unnecessary drama, expose parents to manipulation, and risk ethical conflicts for the attorney.
The best service we can provide our clients with is to keep their estate plan private, protected, and free from outside interference — until the time comes to carry it out.
Estate planning isn’t about giving everyone in the family a voice and a vote. It’s about honoring the voice and wishes of the client.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Attorney Philip J. Kavesh is the principal of one of the largest estate planning firms in California—Kavesh, Minor and Otis—which has been in business since 1981. He is also the President of The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc., which provides a variety of training, marketing, and practice-building products and services for estate planning professionals.